BREWERY OWNER REFLECTS ON BUSINESS AS USUAL

“When you talk about opening a brewery — there’s several of them in Vista,” Adams said. “Lots of breweries. You add the restaurant to it and it’s a whole other business. You have to deal with a lot more personnel — right now we have 28 employees.”

One of the couple’s three sons, Matthew Adams, works as a brewer at the restaurant, and when Ron Adams is not wiring houses and businesses as an electrician, he is typically at the brewery.

“We did all of the remodeling in here, and it was quite a chore,” he recalled. “It was in rough shape.”

Adams remembers the day when a friend of one of his employees walked in with the gigantic sign that now hangs on the rear wall: “He walked in and said, ‘Hey, I made you a sign.’ Brought it in unannounced. We couldn’t get the stuff off that wall fast enough to get it up there. The truth is, we probably couldn’t have done what we’ve done without our friends and family.”

So far, the work is paying off. Sales are up 60 percent over this time last year, Adams reported.

“We’re growing at a faster rate than I thought we would,” he said. “We started gaining some momentum at the end of last year — people started to realize that we’re here, and we have really good food. The first night that we had a line out the door — this was the beginning of 2013 — it was actually pretty exciting.

“For the first year, we were just making things happen,” he added. “But if things keep going the way they’re going, in the next two years we’ll be looking to expand and add a bottling line.”

I asked Adams if he always knew he wanted to open a brewery, and he shrugged.

“There was always that (idea) in the back of my head,” he admitted. “My grandparents had owned a couple of bars in Los Angeles, so it’s always kind of been in our family. I thought it would be fun. And so far, it’s actually been pretty cool.”

Prohibition Brewing Co. is open from 11 a.m. until 11 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and 11-10 on Sunday and Monday.

Know anyone with an interesting job, history or outlook on life? Contact Tom Pfingsten at fallbrooktown@gmail.com